Ottoman Salonika
frequent allusions to Mevlevi Sufis. Her Dönme cookbook contains a
photograph labeled “Family photograph of child in the habit of a Mevlevi
murid [disciple].”^80 During one of our interviews prior to the publication
of the cookbook, she had shown me this photograph, which stood out
among many portraying people in typical western European dress. Yıldız
Sertel, in her novelistic biography of her mother, Sabiha Sertel notes how
Sabiha’s father, and the author’s grandfather, Nazmi Efendi, had enjoyed
participating in Mevlevi rituals, and then sharing meals with the sheikh
and his other disciples at the Mevlevi lodge in the city, ever since he was
a boy. He had made sure that his son Mecdi, who attended the Terakki
school and worked as a secretary for the Singer firm, also saw attending
the lodge as a normal part of life. Yıldız Sertel depicts her grandfather as
being glad to be the grandson of a Mevlevi Sufi (Dervish Ali), because
with the Sufis, one felt part of a family.^81 His wife Atiye also speaks of
“we Mevlevis” at one point, and she is well-versed in Sufi interpretations
of creation; close relatives were disciples of Bektaşi sheikhs: “According to
the Bektaşi, a human is part of God’s beauty, a light that emanated from
figure 2.2 Mustafa Fazıl. Tombstone portrait, Istanbul. Photo by author.